talking about computers and design
by Ralph Grabowski

Feb 17, 2015

Let me tell you a story about loyalty. For many years, I've used a popular and highly regarded tax form preparation software from a well-known company. As a small business owner in the United States, I have to fill out the dreaded Schedule C form.

In the early years I used "interview" mode to guide me through. I'm a hands-on kind of person, so once I gained some experience, I liked that the software gave me the option of filling out the forms manually by entering numbers right on the tax form. Meanwhile, it kept related forms synchronized and reviewed all of them for inconsistencies. I also liked that I could keep everything local, with both application and data stored on my desktop only.

I started getting nervous, however, a few years ago when this company began pressuring me to move to its tax preparation on the cloud. I resisted. I had to dig through near-hidden links on their Web site to find and then purchase the desktop version of their software.

But I persevered. I made sure to decline to participate in their cloud, even though it was getting more difficult -- and more irritating -- to do so, year after year. I remained loyal, reminding myself that they had a nice thing going with me buying the program every year, and they surely wouldn't just leave me out in the cold.

This year, like every year before, I hit the Internet to purchase my usual tax preparation software. Except this year, I found that the heat had been turned up a notch. Not only was it a struggle to find the desktop version of the software, but I discovered that they were going to force me to pay for a more expensive flavor of the software that had features I didn't need or want.

The new twist was the straw that broke the camel's back. I promptly searched for and found a competitor product, discovered that it worked exactly the way I liked, and cost only one fifth as much. I use the new software quite happily, and wonder why I waited so long to switch.

Loyalty, of course.

But this story is not over yet. In early February, I received an email from the first tax software firm with the subject, "Our apologies. We're fixing things." I suspect some of you got the same email, and maybe some of you decided to give them another chance.

"We heard you. It's time we make it right." But it's too late now for us. Our relationship has ended. I've moved on and found someone else. Sorry. You should have listened to me while I was still loyal to you.

This story is about loyalty to tax form preparation software, but the savvy among you might recognize that this story is really about CAD software. You, my dear reader, are headed for a showdown: you are being pushed by large CAD companies to conform with their needs, instead of them conforming to ours. When the time comes, will a mea culpa email be enough to retain our loyalty?

Jan 12, 2015

Autodesk is thinking about eliminating perpetual licensing within the next two years (starting first with AutoCAD LT). Paying repeatedly is more expensive than paying once, of course. As I remind my kids, by buying a $70 high-gain antenna and never paying for cable tv, our family so far saved $27,430 -- and counting.

With the elimination of the perpetual license, how much more will Autodesk programs cost you? Owen Wengerd did the research, and found the following ratios:

Most products carry the same ratios, but there is an anomaly with LT-branded software, which tends to be 30%, ie. 3 years 4 months. Perhaps the better ratio is the reason AutoCAD LT will be the poster boy for permanent-license elimination.

(Note: the # indicates products that are on the Autodesk Web page but are hidden by CSS code.)

Jul 22, 2014

Among A&E firms that produce CAD drawings, it is common practice to maintain ownership of the drawings they create. In theory, this ownership is predicated on well-established contract and copyright law. In practice, however, it can be difficult and expensive to enforce.

But earlier this month, a US federal court in Florida made a noteworthy ruling. It provides a new angle of attack for copyright owners going after infringers in court. So, if you're a consumer of drawing files created by others, you should be aware of the implications:

The dispute is about a company that replaced the original company name and other information on the title block of drawings. These design drawings were created by the plaintiff, in this case. Now, the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the USA prohibits third parties from removing or modifying "copyright management information." Traditionally this was thought to apply only to the metadata associated with content that is distributed electronically (e.g. over the Internet) -- not to printed output.

Here the court determined that information included on drawing title blocks intended for printed output is under the law a "copyright management information." It therefore is protected from removal or modification.

Mar 31, 2014

Each year, I track how AutoCAD's End User License Agreement (EULA) grows. After a big rewrite in AutoCAD 2012, the EULA stabilized somewhat: AutoCAD 2013 brought only a few minor tweaks, and AutoCAD 2014 introduced no changes whatsoever. The hiatus didn't last long. I guess lawyers have to eat too. Here's a rundown of the changes I noted in the AutoCAD 2015 EULA:

"Subscription" is now recast as "Relationship Program" and "Services".

Removed section 2.3, Exceptions to Prohibitions, which was irrelevant and contained a ridiculous attempt to place a burden of proof on the licensee.

Minor tweaks to cover short term license periods (e.g. for rentals).

Modified the clause preventing the license from being assumed or assigned as part of a bankruptcy proceeding. The new language provides for transfer subject to a bunch of conditions. This appears to be a laudable change, but I'm no lawyer.

New section 10, Additional Terms, that includes license terms and definitions specific to Maya, Softimage, and 3ds Max.

New section 11, Additional Terms: Quantity Take Off, that includes licnse terms specific to the Quantity Take Off software.

New section 12 with a clause about the Akamai NetSession Interface (aka "download technology").

Expanded the different types of licensees and usages, apparently to cover rentals and to make "educational" licenses more generic (i.e. there is no more "student license").

For those keeping score, here's a graph showing how the EULA has grown since AutoCAD 2000:

Jan 15, 2013

I enjoy riding my bicycle for exercise and recreation. The open road is a great way to escape the humdrum of home office life, clear the mind, and enjoy the world at 18 miles per hour. When I'm riding solo through Amish country dodging potholes and horse droppings, sometimes inspiration strikes me.

Like the other day, when it dawned on me that the solution to the touch screen problem of not being able to see what's beneath your fingers is simple: put the screen in front of the fingers.

Dec 12, 2012

Attendance at Autodesk University 2012 was up a bit after a few down years. My impression is that Autodesk invested more marketing muscle this year in an effort to attract new attendees. The anecdotal evidence I have seen and heard suggests that a significantly higher percentage of attendees were first-timers this year than in past years. Add that all up, and I think you're happy if you're the AU organizers, but you worry about whether you can get those new attendees back next year.

My last-minute request for a press badge was denied by Autodesk PR, so I learned that I'm not a real reporter. I did manage to get on the guest list for the Media and Blogger Reception, though, so I actually got the free beer and awesome view without having to sit through a single boring press conference. #WINNING

The official word is that there are "more exhibitors than ever before", but I'm skeptical of that claim. There were more large booths, and maybe more floor space total, but I don't think there were more individual exhibitors. If I was a real reporter, I would contact Autodesk to get verification. Since I'm not a real reporter, I'll stick with my intuition.

Speaking of exhibitors, I'd like to give a shout out to Chris Vought of Flatter Files (http://www.flatterfiles.com/). Small companies like this one generally don't get much attention, but I was very impressed with Chris and his concept. The Flatter Files software is a bit like AutoCAD WS on steroids. It supports many more file types, uses PDF as an intermediate format, and is designed for both mobile and desktop clients.

Elsewhere, I learned that architecture trumps the laws of physics. At least, that's one possible explanation for the following sentence describing the dome structures atop the California Academy of Sciences (from a plaque displayed as part of the exhibit): "The tops of the domes take advantage of higher wind pressures to exhaust internal heat buildup."

Unfortunately I missed the Thursday night social event, but I heard it was one of the best ever. It sounds trite, but the social events are every bit as valuable at AU as the classes. You may justify the expense of AU to your boss by highlighting the classes and training you'll receive, but the true value of AU is in the networking and connections you make with other attendees and Autodesk representatives, often long after the last class of the day. I already knew that, so technically I didn't learn it at this AU, but it is still as true as it ever was.

Oct 16, 2012

The CAD pundits and CAD companies talk all the time about the next big thing. Much of the chatter is based on marketing hype and wistful thinking, with an occasional bit of reality thrown in. The hot topics du jour are "cloud" anything and massively parallel processing, aka "infinite computing". Now cloud computing might some day change the world as we know it, but that's not the topic of this post and I don't want to open that can of worms. Oops, my bad, I guess I already did.

Big Changes vs Small

I think it's likely that there will eventually be another seismic shift in how we design and build stuff -- something on the scale of moving from drafting boards to computer screens -- but mostly we will see a slow evolution with many small changes that amalgamate and standardize over time by survival of the fittest. That's how it should be.

I find it fascinating to observe the interplay between marketing forces and consumers. The social dynamics of this evolution are such that marketing forces are generally attempting to sell big changes (or at least big ideas, whether practical or not) at the expense of small, but important and practical changes.

Sometimes, I get to thinking about what kinds of small changes could really have an impact, but that may not be appealing to marketing wonks and may therefore never happen without divine intervention.

4D Modeling

One such change that I have contemplated is the notion of viewing a model (of anything) like a video rather than a photo. In other words, with a time axis, and with discrete frames that can be easily rolled backward and forward, just as with a video. The technical ability to do this is very well established in forms as diverse as video compression technology or source code version control systems. Imagine that every change to a model, no matter how it is made, results in a small discrete packet of information that describes the change (ideally in a way that can be easily understood via a kind of viewer that compare the changes between any two frames in the history). This approach, however, impinges on a lot of the fundamental ways in which we work, from file formats to distributed multi-user environment management.

I hear some of you saying, "But this is just history-based modeling, which has already been tried." Yes, there are some parallels, but it's not the same thing. Take, for example, source control systems in which it is easy for multiple programmers to make changes to the same file simultaneously. This is possible because of how "diff packets" work, and because the software contains algorithms to merge simultaneous changes -- or, at worst, force a person to resolve collisions when they cannot be resolved automatically.

You can't do this sort of thing with history-based modeling.

I can think of other benefits as well. Anyone currently maintaining a BIM database probably will have developed some way of managing snapshots-in-time of the database; this could be completely automatic if the time axis were built right into the data. Incremental backups would be simple and, like video compression, model data compression would be enhanced because of the time granularity of the data.

I've heard some indications that the recent startup sunglass.io is storing models in a fashion similar to my description, and while writing this post I went to their Web site, but found that they don't support my Web browser or my Android phone, so I didn't bother to test or research it further. This, however, illustrates my earlier point that corporate needs sometimes trump the needs of consumers.

Sep 27, 2011

Much has been written about how social networking is shaping the future. I'm totally on board, but I'm not quite ready to sell my soul. I still think before I post, and I scrutinize every privacy setting to make sure I have maximum control over who can see what I post. I also take care about who I "friend". To me, a friend is someone that I know personally - not necessarily "in person", but at least someone I have interacted with one-on-one either professionally or personally. The thing is, modern social networking vernacular, or "text patois" as I like to call it, is changing our language.

What does it mean to be someone's "friend" on Facebook? LinkedIn uses the term "connection", which is more to my liking. On Twitter, we are "followers" like sheep to slaughter, and on Google+ we get added to "circles" like rats. At the least, we all have "contacts" (who could legitimately be our worst enemies, I guess). Is language evolving to fit our needs, or is the tail wagging the dog here? Sometimes I feel a bit trapped, such as when I'm faced with a "friend request" from someone that does not fit my definition of a friend, but who is nevertheless someone I know. I am guilty of sometimes bending my own rules a little to satisfy my innate idea of fairness - or my fear of rejecting someone who I don't want to offend.

I recently posed a friend-request scenario to some friends and asked for their advice. One (very real) friend responded that she tends to accept friend requests from people she knows "as long as they were not bat-s**t crazy, or someone with whom I'd had a messy falling out." I wonder if this is typical, or whether the rules may vary by age and gender. I have received a number of LinkedIn connection requests that are currently in limbo: I don't know the people personally at all, but they obviously know me and they generally work for companies that I have a relationship with, or we belong to the same associations. If I knew these people, I would accept their request without a second thought. Yet, there they are, not accepted and not declined, on the off chance that I eventually relax my criteria for being a friend.

Jul 25, 2011

Remember modems? Now we complain when there's no wi-fi available. I'll give credit to the smart phone, and even begrudging credit to the iPhone in particular, for improving the way we communicate and the way we work on the go. There's no denying that we've made real progress. But what if sometimes the old fashioned way really was better?

Remember the digitizer vs. keyboard debate? Well old-timer, say hello to the ribbon.

Remember when HTML was invented to encapsulate content and relationships in a view-independent way so that consumers could decide how to format it? Step right over here, and let me introduce you to HTML 5 and an "immersive web experience" that you have very little control over.

Remember NNTP social networks? Welcome, friend, to an HTTP world where cartoon avatars are perfectly normal, even on professional discussion groups.

I don't want to roll back time, but wouldn't it be nice to undo some of the changes?

Imagine if we could erase the .NET framework and "just-in-time" compilation.

What would the world be like if our software started instantly instead of having to be compiled and "optimized" before it can run?

What if our CAD software UI was fast enough that the digitizer vs. keyboard debate was actually still relevant?

Apr 12, 2011

Over on his Outside The Box blog, Owen Wengerd has started a tutorial on how to write BRX programs for Briscad using Linux:

The next order of business was to build and load a BRX module. I started by installing Code::Blocks, an open source cross platform C/C++ IDE that can be used in both Windows and Linux. The IDE installed fine, but then things got interesting.

Apr 01, 2011

One of the less heralded new features of AutoCAD 2012 is the redesigned End User License Agreement (EULA). The EULA generally evolves (or devolves, as the case may be) from release to release, but AutoCAD 2012 sports a completely redrafted EULA.

Not only is the EULA new, it's bigger. A lot bigger:

If the EULA continues to double with each release, and releases continue to ship every year, then the EULA for AutoCAD 2020 will contain more words than a dozen copies of War and Peace!

Despite its heft, this EULA has clearly been rewritten to a higher standard of quality than previous versions. I've made fun of poorly drafted EULA wording in the past, and while this one is no work of art, it does have some redeeming qualities.

The presentation is more efficient and consistent, and the style is more refined -- albeit the content continues to stick it to the little guy.

The AutoCAD 2012 EULA removes the EXCESSIVE SHOUTING that was introduced in AutoCAD 2010.

Definitions and license-type specifics have been moved into appendices.

The confusing and obviously incorrect "API Module" wording (introduced in AutoCAD 2010 and surprisingly remained in the AutoCAD 2011 EULA) is removed completely.

Unfortunately, all this moving around and renumering of sections makes it more difficult to compare the new EULA to the previous one, but by and large the legal aspects of the agreement remain the same, just with more prose and coverage for new license types and new usage scenarios.

The audit clause is still there.

You can still install a standalone license on both a main desktop computer and a laptop.

You still can't take your AutoCAD with you when you leave your "territory".

You can't transfer a license, and the license automatically terminates if you become insolvent or bankrupt.

It's interesting to note the addition of the "Fixed Term/Limited Duration/Rental License" and "Session Specific Network License", and the increased attention paid to the effects of a maintenance subscription on the license agreement.

The new EULA contains numerous changes in language that in some cases are intended to make the language legally more watertight, in some cases to clarify a term, and in other cases intended to broaden the scope to make it more versatile -- probably in an effort to unify the EULA terms among disparate products.

Mar 04, 2011

Trademarks are interesting creatures. They serve a very specific and very limited purpose: to identify the source of a good or service. Trademarks are intellectual property, but unlike other types of intellectual property, the status and strength of a trademark can and often does change over time.

Identical trademarks can be used by different entities as long as this does not result in source confusion, so infringement is often not straightforward. If a trademark is abandoned, it eventually loses its status as a trademark. If a trademark becomes generic (like "aspirin" and "thermos"), it also loses its status as a trademark. Trademarks which had once been abandoned (or become generic) can be revived. For example, the Xerox trademark has been revived after many years of being used as a generic synonym for "photocopy".

Autodesk's attempt to register DWG as a trademark is an example of an effort to take a mark that started out generic and turning it into a trademark. This action is perfectly legal, if they can pull it off; but they'll need to overcome objections by senior users of the mark and demonstrate that consumers do in fact associate DWG with Autodesk.

I expect Autodesk will eventually succeed; it's just a matter of time and effort, and possibly paying off companies like Nemetschek North America to withdraw their objection. If Autodesk's registration attempt fails this time, they can continue using DWG as an unregistered mark, then try again to register it in the future. Unless someone is well funded and highly motivated to stop them, Autodesk will eventually succeed.

What will the world look like once Autodesk successfully registers DWG as a trademark? It certainly won't end. In theory, the world will improve slightly, at least from a consumer's point of view. After all, the purpose of trademarks is to prevent or reduce consumer confusion, which is a good thing.

A file extension is not a trademark, so registration of DWG will not give Autodesk any right to the .dwg file extension. It won't prevent consumers from using the term "DWG" in any non-commercial way they please. It certainly won't prevent competitors from reading and writing .dwg files, although it might limit what they call such files. In no material way does registration of DWG as a trademark give Autodesk control over the data in a .dwg file -- at least not more than they already have.

What a DWG trademark will do is strengthen Autodesk's RealDWG trademark, and open the door for Autodesk to claim other marks with DWG in them. It might give Autodesk a bit more ammunition if they want to use the threat of a trademark infringement claim as a weapon. It certainly will give Autodesk leverage for licensing its RealDWG libraries, because it can sweeten the pot by including a license to use the DWG mark when referring to the .dwg files produced with their libraries.

Jan 19, 2011

Handles are those 16-digit unique keys attached to every entity within an AutoCAD drawing file. They are commonly exposed and displayed as strings, but they are really 16-digit (64-bit) hexadecimal numbers ranging from zero to more than 1.8e19. That's 18 quintillion for US readers (18 trillion for the rest of you). Or if you prefer, that's just under 1/5 of a googol. No matter how you count it, that's a lot of handles!

Handles are never recycled and persist in a drawing file for the life of the entity, so every new handle must be guaranteed to have never before been used in the drawing. To guarantee this, every drawing file contains a handle seed whose value never decreases -- but increases by one every time a new handle is used. Erasing an entity does not free its handle for reuse; a copy of an entity is always assigned a new handle.

There's a fun fact about the history of handles. Prior to AutoCAD Release 13, handles could be turned off. This saved space in the drawing file, but it also meant there was no getting the original handles back once they were gone. The Handles command could be used to destroy handles in an open drawing file, but the command made you correctly answer a randomly selected question before it did the deed -- just to make sure you wouldn't destroy handles accidentally. If you were too lazy to answer the question, you could cheat and enter the secret master password instead:

Q?+:$$ &9*^0E#1@2AF5+_R)!/&#<*:

Handles are specifically designed to establish and maintain links between drawing entities and data in external databases, or between entities of the same drawing file. Handles can also be used for forensic analysis of drawing files. The gaps between handle numbers, their magnitude, and their order provides valuable information in courtrooms to paint a picture of the drawing's history. For example, handles can prove that two drawing files had a common ancestor, or that one drawing was copied from another.

Many data formats invented in the 1970s and 1980s used data fields that were no more than 32 bits wide, on the assumption that four billion possible values were plenty. But the set of possible handles in AutoCAD is sufficiently large to easily suffice on today's computers. Whoever invented DWG handles had the foresight to make them large enough that they would, for all intents and purposes, last forever.

But will they?

It's not surprising for software to fail unexpectedly when it reaches internal data size limits or by exceeding itself in unanticipated ways. A little experimenting by manually editing the $HANDSEED value in a DXF file shows that in certain special cases AutoCAD 2011 will crash when the handle seed is set to a value near the maximum, forcing it to recycle handles by wrapping the handle seed back to zero. This is the eNullHandle error. In fact, AutoCAD 2011 will display the following error message when opening a DXF file whose handle seed is merely half way to the theoretical limit: DXF file's HANDSEED '7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF' is too low. Please edit and change it to '0'.

It's easy to assume that limits as insanely large as multiple quintillions will never be reached, but every finite limit is destined to be reached eventually. Today it may be unimaginable for a drawing file to contain trillions of entities, but it is only a matter of time before we start modeling entire cities, or the entire world, or even the universe itself.

On the one hand, it's no big deal, for handles can be expanded when we start approaching their limit. On the other hand, I predict that CAD users will begin to see more and more limitations due to data field sizes causing problems over the next decade, as CAD drawings expand beyond the 32-bit world.

Dec 20, 2010

[This is the first time Owen Wengerd has written for WorldCAD Access, with plans to write more about user-oriented issues here. He'll continue writing about AutoCAD programming at his blog, Outside the Box. More about Mr Wengerd at http://otb.manusoft.com/about ]

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Visitors to the revamped web site of AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) wouldn't know it from reading the glossy ad-adorned main page, but there's been trouble brewing. The official AUGI blog had proudly proclaimed that the new site will "contain more information than ever before," but it turns out that in fact the treasure trove of information collected in the AUGI discussion forums over the past ten years disappeared during the transition, and members are not very happy about the loss.

It's clear that someone at AUGI dropped the ball, but it's not clear who. Outgoing president Mark Kiker spearheaded an effort two years ago to cut ties with Solid Vapor, the third party contractor who had been hired in 2003 to operate and promote the AUGI brand in exchange for, among other things, the right to profit from these pursuits for the next 10 years. Apparently this included the rights to the forum content. Could it be held hostage (until 2013 by some reports) due to terms in that original Solid Vapor contract?

I've been told that when the Solid Vapor agreement collapsed, one of the Solid Vapor principals agreed to continue hosting the AUGI web content, and the new hosting entity claims to have inherited all rights to the data and refuses to provide it to AUGI. In any case, AUGI apparently does not have access to the data from the old forums. It's plausible (and widely assumed) that AUGI management made a unilateral decision to change web hosting providers, then realized too late that the forum content would be held hostage.

Incoming president David Harrington has stated that the dispute will be resolved soon, and that he plans to restore the old forum software along with the old data. I don't know whether this represents a fundamental shift in philosophy, or was the plan all along, or is a reaction to the outcry from members and the recognition that a mistake was made, or just an attempt to smooth things over temporarily in hopes that the ruckus will die down.

This story has all the elements of a good spy novel, but the fallout has repercussions for many AUGI members who relied on the forum as a valuable information resource. As in past AUGI crises, members are left with no clear communication from AUGI representatives as to what is happening or who is calling the shots, and this magnifies the sense of helplessness that many members feel.

Unfortunately it also results in a lot of unhelpful gossip and innuendo clouding what is undoubtedly an important organizational drama playing out behind the scenes.

I'm confident that David Harrington and the AUGI board will eventually get this current crisis resolved, but as an AUGI member (albeit infrequent forum participant), I have a wish list for AUGI going forward:

Make AUGI member-supported: consider a tiered membership system that ranges from free to dues-paying.

Publish all legal agreements, contracts, and meeting minutes in a place where all members can read them.

Give a membership-chosen ombudsman unfettered access to act as an impartial observer and auditor of all internal affairs.

Focus on the members: act on our behalf, represent us, empower us, and be our collective voice to Autodesk.